Failure project

Textile skills are a big part of my family heritage. My great- grandmother is a crocheting queen, one grandmother quilts and the other knits and crochets. So I decided to learn how to crochet. I taught myself online and here are the results of my first attempt:

Presentation Questions

How do we let the single story influence our lives?
How can we break away from the single story mentality?
How can we do this in our classrooms?
What can we do in our classrooms to share cultural and political issues when the students are young?
For the youtube videos look to a lower post.

Feminism

As someone who considers herself outside this debate in France over burkini's I can't help but wonder if those leading the fight against them realize how paranoid they look. The clothing of someone does not make them a terrorist. Women should be allowed to enjoy themselves at the beach dressed in whatever makes them feel more comfortable. How ironic that a group of people feel more comfortable forcing women to be almost naked. As someone who is also concerned about modesty, I find the idea of being required to wear a bikini awful and humiliating. It's like saying I'm not smart enough to make my own clothing choices, to choose how I treat my body. It makes me want to shake my fist in the face of patriarchal society. I think this case is a clear example of what happens when people let fear get the best of them. Their fear is understandable in France. They have had several tragedies in the last few years. But saying that all Muslims are potential terrorists is like saying all French are snobs or all Americans are fat. It's unjustified and unfair. How can this be so clear about about one group, but so fuzzy about another? I don't understand it, no matter how I try.

Guest Lecturer's

Jethro:
I loved hearing about how Jethro build his portable studio. He talked about how he'd build it during his masters and showed some of the things students had done with it. I loved how it was such a strong example of giving students freedoms but still keeping them restricted to certain boundaries. I was impressed by the things students of his were creating. He shared a quote that I loved that more or less said "you can't teach creativity but you can create a creative space". This really made me think about how I would want to set up my own classroom and what kind of projects I would want to give.

Dan:
Dan talked mostly about obectontology. I'd never heard of the concept before but I found it interesting. I didn't fully understand it but what I did sounded like it was about the space between. He talked about how there is a scientific table, a cultural table and the space between, almost like the space between atoms. The reading he shared went over my head some but what I did grasp I found interesting and I think it's worth looking into more. He also talked about looking at objects and asking what do they teach us. We also went to see the newest show in the MOA.

Abstract Art

Class work

Cornell West, Bell Hooks, and Michael Foulcault

These three people have been very influential in the theory world. West talks about race and social class. He talks about how white supremacy runs America and what its like to be on the other side of that equation. He talks about how being black in a white run society leads to feelings of doubt with self worth and identity. He said that 9/11 gave white people a glimpse into the insecurities and fear that come with being black in America.

Bell Hooks focuses more on feminism and social class. She writes primarily on how the system is self perpetuating and continues the oppression. Her belief that there is no one right answer to the problem is very post modern. She also believes collaboration is important to good learning environments.

Michael Foucault is a French theorist. He talked about how power controls what is talked about in society. He wrote about hierarchies. He classified himself as a Modernist but others often viewed him as Post- Modern because of his writings and viewpoints towards how structures worked.

Michael Ray Charles and the Single Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qffCO1b-7Js

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Ev-W4BGag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODzwb90b5qE&t=42s

Art vs. Design

Honestly, I think the line between art and design is very thin these days. The two are starting to blend into each other as artists use design techniques and vice versa. But as we were looking at the exhibit of BYU students I did notice some things that separate the two groups.  Design is less about an intellectual concept. I find that often it is more about the formal elements such as form, line, and color. In today's art world you would be hard pressed to find a piece of art that doesn't have a concept, or some idea that the artist is trying to share. I also noticed that design works are often more illustrative. They are more concerned about telling a story. Design work is meant to be easily read and understood, while often art is meant to be pondered over. That is not to say that this is always the case for either area, but these are how they generally work. Design also often has a customer lined up ahead of time who wants something specific while art is made more how the artist wants it.

Modernism

Modernism was a movement that began in the early 1900's. It was a group of people who were questioning how things, especially art, functioned. They were trying to take things down to the essence of what they were. Painters were painting for the sake of painting. Modernists did not want to create an illusion but to emphasize the heart of painting; the flat surface and paint. That is how we ended up with artists such as Mondrian and Pollock. Both artists were focused not on imagery but on formal elements.

Making it Small in Hollywood

 I really liked this article by Mike Birbigila. Especially his advice on failing and learning from it. It's inevitable that we are going to fail as artists, so I really like this idea of turning failure into something better. In another class of mine we looked at Francil Alys who believes that his art is never done. He sees it as a kind of rehearsal. Alys is open to changing his work and title depending on the context and doesn't like to call things finished. I've begun experimenting with this idea and I like how it bounces off of Birbigila's thoughts.

Interesting things